by Tom Palmer
‘What’s the mission?’ Kester asked, standing. ‘Why is it so much harder? I thought you just wanted us to keep watching them and try to find out more about the hardware they have.’
‘Because of what you’ve discovered,’ Jim replied, ‘there’s been a change of plan. But I’ll tell you more about it later. Just rest now. I want your minds clear for twenty-four hours.’
Black Op
After breakfast, Jim ran a light training session for the whole team in preparation for the Spain game later in the day, then he announced that he was taking the defenders for more intensive training.
‘They need it!’ Rio shouted after them. Jim, for once, did not respond.
Hatty smiled to herself. If only Rio knew what was really happening, that this intensive training they were going on was not about football at all, but about guns and bombs and protecting his precious England superstars. She burned with the desire to tell him. But of course, she never could.
The Squad gathered on the perimeter of the hotel grounds, all eyes on Jim.
‘You want to know what the mission is?’ he asked.
‘Yes, please,’ Hatty answered.
‘OK.’ Jim cleared his throat. ‘The England first team arrive in Krakow tomorrow.’
‘Fantastic,’ Lily said, grinning at Kester. ‘If we could just beat Spain …’
Kester grinned back.
‘… you could meet them,’ Jim said, finishing the sentence. ‘And I will definitely be using that as motivation with the rest of the team. But back to business. England are in Krakow to train. It’s their base. But they will not be playing here. We believe that the men you’ve been monitoring will attack during England’s training camp in this area and not during the tournament. That means any attack will be in the next three days. So … we … we want you to go in and hit the terrorists and –’
‘Hit?’ It was Lily who had interrupted.
And for a moment Jim looked surprised. ‘Go on, Lily,’ he said, regaining his composure.
‘Well,’ Lily said. ‘All we’ve ever done is monitor, find things out. We do it because we’re children and no one suspects us. But this? By “hit” you mean attack, don’t you? That’s for the Special Forces, isn’t it? Not us.’
Jim nodded. ‘Normally I would agree too,’ he said. ‘This is a dangerous assignment. But frankly …’
‘Yes?’ said Hatty.
‘Well, frankly you five are the best qualified. You know the terrain. And we can’t go about it in the way the Special Forces would anyway. We’re watching, tracking, following. And you’ve done all that superbly so far. The only extra bit is stopping them. Also, if anyone with an interest has any inkling that we’re on to them, then we’re creating a greater threat. They could well be watching our MI6 and SAS units at home and abroad. But you’re here and we need to hit them tonight. They’ve been moving about a hundred kilometres a day. At that rate they’ll reach Krakow late tomorrow. We’re assuming that means they could attack any time thirty-six hours from now.’
‘But how do we stop them without killing them – or making a scene?’ Kester asked.
‘Good question, Kester,’ said Jim. ‘We’ll arm you with two kinds of grenade: gas grenades and stun grenades, the first to knock people out, the second to disorient them for a few seconds if need be. Also tranquillizer guns.’
‘Guns?’ Hatty asked.
‘Look, I said we’re not going to ask you to kill anyone,’ Jim said. ‘You’re children. You’re excellent spies, but you’re not killers. I don’t want you out there doing that. So you knock them out. That’s it.’
‘And what do we have to do?’
‘Surround them wherever they stop tonight. Make sure they’re all there. Knock them out with the tranquillizer guns, then alert the Polish authorities to what’s been going on, without implicating yourselves or the UK. Look, you’ve used high explosives in training. Done this kind of recce. It’s not so different from your training, except that, rather than killing them, you’ll just be knocking them out for a few hours.’
The children continued to stare at Jim.
Jim stared back. ‘Nobody else can do this but you,’ he said. ‘You can see that, can’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Kester. He knew that this mission would push the Squad’s skills and bravery to the limit, but it had to be done. It was up to them to save the England team.
‘But before all that,’ Lily said, ‘there’s the small matter of playing football against the best youth team in the world.’
England V. Spain
At the end of the Spain match – and after shaking hands with the Spanish players – the whole England youth team collapsed on to the ground. The game had been impossibly hard. So hard they had not noticed the stadium with its towering stands and row on row of glass-fronted executive boxes, only the rectangle of grass they’d been playing on.
From the first minute the Spanish team had passed the ball around so fast it was dizzying and the children had felt like they were playing Barcelona on a PlayStation World Class setting. The England defenders hadn’t had a second to think. They’d needed to watch every player and every ball for forty-five minutes. Then for another forty-five.
They had run and blocked and run and tackled and run and fouled and run and hoofed. In goal Adnan had been immense. He’d stopped shot after shot, having gained confidence from the first game. It was strange. Something had changed. And whatever that something was it meant that now they were a pretty good team, all eleven of them.
There had been only one goal between kick-off and the final whistle. It had come from a mistake by Adnan. He’d bowled the ball out to Kester on the right, but a Spanish attacker had read the move and intercepted. Suddenly it had been one Spanish striker against Adnan in his goal.
Adnan had decided he had to try to take control of the situation, rather than be passive. Or at least pretend to. But what should he do? How many goalkeepers had survived a one-on-one with a Spanish striker by using ordinary goalkeeping techniques?
Not many.
So Adnan had run out of the goal at the Spanish player, which was not what the striker had been expecting. And Adnan had seen it in the striker’s eyes. A question mark.
Doubt!
Adnan had got into the Spanish striker’s head. He’d seized the moment and lunged at him; the boy had panicked, scuffing the ball past Adnan. Adnan had looked back to see the ball trickling towards the net, so he’d leaped at it and tucked it into his chest, just as the entire Spanish team had come thundering down to knock in the loose ball, closely followed by the entire England team. Everyone except Rio, who was standing on the halfway line.
Adnan had spotted him and – without hesitating – hurled the ball half the length of the pitch to him. Rio had chested it down, turned, taken five or six paces with the ball at his feet, had seen the Spanish keeper coming off his line and hit it skywards.
The ball had sailed over the keeper, a white dot against the blue, then powered down and into the net.
Goal. An amazing goal.
England 1 Spain 0.
And that was how the game had finished.
In the heap of collapsed post-match English bodies, one figure moved. It was the team captain, Rio, making his way over to Adnan. He put his arm out to the keeper, hauled him off the ground and shook his hand.
Adnan couldn’t believe what was happening: Rio was as excited as a child at Christmas.
‘You were awesome today,’ Rio said. Then he turned to the rest of the team. ‘You all were. I can’t believe what we’ve just done. We’ve beaten the best team in the world. And that means … that means … I can’t believe it.’ He was jumping around like an excited puppy now. ‘We’re in the final. We’re going to meet Rooney and Theo and Joe Hart and Rio … Rio Ferdinand!’
‘Who have we got next, Rio?’ Kester asked, trying to calm him down.
‘Russi
a.’
‘Russia?’ Hatty, Kester and Adnan said the word together.
‘Yeah,’ Rio replied, looking puzzled. ‘What’s wrong with them? They’ll be a lot easier than Spain.’
‘Oh, nothing,’ Lily said, smiling.
In the Church
After a good training session and lunch the next day, the players gathered in the entertainment room, everyone sitting in groups, talking and resting, except Georgia who was on her own, texting.
Lily was feeling tense. Really tense. She didn’t like just sitting around at the best of times. All she could think about was that tonight the Squad had their most serious and dangerous mission ever, where they might actually have to attack people, something they’d never been asked to do before.
There was too much adrenalin going round her system: she had to do something.
‘What shall we do?’ she muttered, not sure if it was to the others or just to herself. No one answered.
‘Where’s Jim?’ Kester asked after another minute.
‘He’s gone out somewhere,’ Lily replied, shrugging.
For Lily, the room was creaking with boredom now. She watched Kester staring at the ceiling, then back at her. Lily could feel so much tension rising in her, she felt sick. She decided she would go for a run to burn it off. That was the answer. She stood up, ready to tell everyone her plan.
Then Kester made a suggestion. ‘Let’s go into the city centre.’
‘Yeah,’ Lesh said quickly.
‘Great,’ Lily agreed, having abandoned her idea for a run.
‘Can I come?’ Johnny asked.
One hour later, a tram deposited Lily, Lesh, Kester and Johnny in the centre of Krakow, one of Europe’s most beautiful cities. Adnan and Hatty had stayed at the hotel, Hatty having pointed out that it was a good idea if the Squad didn’t always hang around as a group.
Krakow was all arches and towers and narrow back streets, buildings made of painted wood. The kind of place parents get really excited about. There were weird sculptures scattered around the city, including one of a massive hollow head on its side next to a row of cafes in the main square.
In the far corner of the square was a cathedral, two towers against the bright blue sky. As bells sounded in the tower, Lily gazed up at it, smiling. She liked their sound as they pealed round the square.
That was when she saw the flash. A glimpse of orange in a tiny window at the top of the tower. It was the kind of thing they’d been trained to spot: if you are out in the wild and you see a flash from a hillside, it could be the telescopic sights of a high-velocity rifle targeting you, or someone in trouble using a mirror to get your attention.
Lily stared up at the tower, adjusting her eyes to the brightness of the sky. As she looked, she heard the noise of a trumpet sounding and she smiled. That was what the flash was. The brassy orange colour was the end of the trumpet.
‘What’s with the trumpet?’ she asked Lesh, thinking he’d know because he was from Poland. But it was Johnny who answered.
‘It’s a tradition,’ he said quickly, holding up a book. ‘I read about it in this guide to Krakow. There was an attack on Krakow in the old days and a trumpeter was sounding the warning from the tower of the Mariacki Church, but he was shot dead by an enemy arrow. Since then, they’ve sounded a trumpet from that tower every fifteen minutes, day and night, to mark his death.’
‘Wow,’ Lily said. ‘That’s amazing.’
Johnny smiled.
They walked around the city, stopping for some food, looking in shops. Every lamp post seemed to have a Euro 2012 banner on it and every shop window had some sort of display related to football, even chemists and cafes.
Lily noticed that every fifteen minutes the trumpet sounded, just like Johnny had said it would. But she’d had enough of shops and walking. She’d thought of something she wanted to do: light a candle for Rob.
‘Can we go to the cathedral?’ she asked.
‘Do we have to?’ said Lesh. ‘No offence, but stuff like that’s boring.’
Kester was looking the other way, clearly not wanting to go with Lily.
‘I’ll come,’ Johnny said.
‘Thanks, Johnny,’ Lily smiled.
So Lily and Johnny walked over to the cathedral. It was made of red and white bricks and had two towers, one taller than the other, with a huge entrance door between them.
‘I love the trumpeter,’ Lily said.
‘Me too,’ Johnny agreed.
They walked in through the cathedral door, their eyes adjusting to the dark and ill-lit interior after the bright sunshine outside. They saw painted pillars, gold chandeliers hanging down from chains and white marble statues.
Johnny had stopped chatting. He was staring at the ceiling, a bright blue with gold stars reflecting the light of a thousand candles.
They walked over to a bank of candles, some lit and shining. Lily slipped a coin into the box, took a candle out of a tray and lit it. Then she closed her eyes and thought for a few seconds about Rob. As she did all this, Johnny said nothing. He just smiled at her.
‘Are you looking forward to the final?’ Lily asked him in a whisper.
Johnny nodded vigorously and whispered back: ‘I am. I’d love to win it. I’ve never won in a final before …’
Lily looked around the cathedral as Johnny spoke. She always did this in unfamiliar places, so she knew the inside of a building in case something dangerous suddenly happened. It was a habit she had got into. She saw that there was another entrance to the cathedral, one for people who wanted to pray as well as the one for tourists. Near that, a door led to a stone staircase. She wondered if that was the one that led up the taller tower, where the trumpeter might go.
‘Never won a final?’ Lily asked, her thoughts back on Johnny.
‘No. I mean, I’ve played for big sides. I was at Liverpool for a bit. But not …’
Lily knew that Johnny was still talking, but all her attention was now on a man at the front of the pews. One of the things the Squad had been trained to do was identify a person from their body shape and the way they carried themselves without seeing their face, even if they were in disguise.
‘… think we make a really good team …’
Lily tried to take in what Johnny was saying while looking at the man.
‘… with your defending …’
It was Jim. She knew it. And he was praying.
Johnny smiled. ‘Who have you played for?’
‘I was with the Lincoln Imps girls’ team,’ Lily replied, using the backstory she’d been given by Julia.
Lily wanted to get closer to Jim to double-check that it was him. ‘I need to pray,’ she said to Johnny quickly.
‘Oh … OK,’ Johnny said. ‘Feel free. I’ll just hang around here.’
Lily put her hand on Johnny’s arm and smiled. ‘Thank you.’
Then she approached the man and saw that it was Jim, alone in a pew, his hands together, praying. And it made her think. Was Jim religious? Had he ever mentioned churches or anything like that?
No. Only that time he’d said he wasn’t particularly religious. But what did that mean? Here she was, after all, liking being in a church and she wouldn’t describe herself as religious. Maybe he was praying for the Squad: in a few hours they’d be on their most dangerous mission yet.
Assault
None of the children spoke as they waited for Jim’s briefing. They just stood with their backs against the helicopter, staring at their kitbags.
They were not quiet because of nerves: they were quiet because this was their toughest mission ever – the first in which they would be required to attack an enemy – and they wanted to be completely focused.
Minutes before, Jim had spelled out again what they were required to do, spreading a map out on the fuselage of the helicopter. They had gone through everything in painstaking detail.
&nbs
p; ‘You’ll be dropped at the side of a lake about a hundred kilometres away. The journey will take little more than twenty minutes. By the lake you’ll find a small Zodiac inflatable boat. You need to use it to reach this island here, three kilometres east of the landing area. The motor on the boat is fully submerged and very quiet. From the island, I want you to snorkel one and half kilometres to this point here on the beach. Your targets – Svid and the two others – are in the woods fifty to sixty metres back. I want you to get within twenty metres of them, then using night vision, your grenades and tranquillizer guns, I want you to attack. They arrived there at 20:30 hours and have not moved since 22:40. It’s 23:50 hours now. You will make contact at 01:40. Any questions?’
‘You’ve already briefed us about how to attack the camp,’ Kester replied. ‘We’ve got the satellite and drone data coming in live, so we can see any changes once we’re about to go in. I think we’re OK. Team?’
Kester faced the other four, who all replied with sharp nods.
‘Because this is so dangerous,’ Jim said, ‘I’ll be in radio contact at all times via the satellite phone. I’m going back to the city now to oversee the England team’s appearance in Krakow tomorrow, to meet and greet the local people. You know: PR shots, that sort of thing.’
Then the helicopter’s blades began to turn and Jim looked ready to leave.
‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘I know you can do this. You’re a fantastic team. Just use what you’ve learned.’
He shook each of them by the hand. And then he was gone.
The helicopter moved swiftly through the night. Lily looked down and saw a hundred million trees beneath her in the dark. It was black down there. Blacker than normal. And in her mind, turning and turning, there was an unease, something about this mission that didn’t feel right.
But it was too late to discuss that now. The helicopter had stopped moving forward at speed and was dropping slowly towards a river to a height of twenty metres, where the Squad quickly grabbed their kit and descended on wires to the ground.